Striving for Science C58

“Excuse me, where am I?”

"Comrades…"

"Squad leader, why isn't anyone paying attention to us?"

Five young men stood bewildered on the street, their worn-out coats pulled tight around them. When they saw a girl walking by in leggings, they quickly averted their gaze, their faces flushing red with embarrassment.

"I used to hear the storyteller in our town talk about how some people, by chance, would end up in a place cut off from the world." The squad leader patted the empty holster at his waist. Although it was just an empty shell without a gun, having it there made him feel a little more secure. "Could it be that the people here don't understand what we're saying?"

Their squad was made up of men from Sichuan who had come to the front lines to fight the enemy. Their commander had told them that due to insufficient resources, each squad was only equipped with one gun, and their uniforms were also quite worn.

But the country was in a time of crisis, and there was no way around the difficult conditions. In just a month of war, several comrades in their squad had been killed under enemy fire, leaving only five of them. The gun assigned to their squad had been lost in the shelling.

In the evening, they received an order from their company commander to plant landmines on the enemy's inevitable path. Landmines were a rare commodity in their company, and the commander wouldn't have wasted such valuable resources if it wasn't to cut off the enemy's supply of ammunition and food.

"Squad leader, our landmines..." The young men finally realized that the landmines they had been guarding as their lifeblood were gone.

"I clearly remember that we just had to cross that small river to reach the enemy's main road, why..." The young man speaking was probably only fifteen or sixteen years old. To call him a young man was an understatement, he was more like a boy.

He was very thin, with a large, round head. He was wearing brand new straw sandals, but they didn't quite fit. An older brother in their company had seen that he didn't have any shoes, and when they passed through a village, he had asked the villagers for some straw and worked through the night to make him a pair.

The day he put on his new straw sandals, he went out on a mission with the squad leader, and unexpectedly, they ended up in this strange place. He was still young, and he was a little scared.

"Don't panic." The squad leader seemed the most mature, but he was actually only in his early twenties. He barked, "What's wrong with you guys? You always panic when things get tough. What if the enemy comes? If you panic, what about the civilians behind us? What about your wives and children back home? Get your act together, anyone who dares to mess up, I'll deal with them when we get back."

Although he said this, the squad leader himself wasn't feeling very reassured. He remembered clearly that when they crossed the small bridge over the river, he had carefully checked the landmines he was carrying. Suddenly, a thick fog rolled in, and when he came to his senses, he was standing here.

He didn't know where they were, but the place was so bright, those bright things... were they the electric lights they talked about on the radio? The electric lights in big cities were so bright, they even hung them outside the houses. What if the enemy came in and blew them all up?

That would be such a waste.

Could it be that they really came to another world?

That girl just now, she clearly had yellow skin and black eyes, but she had red hair. Could it be that she was the child of a Chinese person and a foreigner?

He glanced at his four comrades, whose expressions were a little panicked, took a deep breath, and mustered his courage to address the two young women who were walking towards them. "Excuse me, ladies..."

The two girls ignored him completely and walked straight into him, causing the squad leader to quickly step back. He was a grown man, he couldn't take advantage of young girls.

Being treated like an invisible person, the squad leader felt a little embarrassed. But he was the leader of the five of them, he had to step up. His eyes scanned the crowd, and he saw a young man pushing another man towards them.

"Excuse me, comrade... Excuse me, where are we?" The squad leader took another deep breath, already prepared to be ignored.

Unexpectedly, the other man stopped, his clear eyes meeting his. "Hello?"

Shen Chang'an looked at the young man in front of him. His clothes were faded and worn, and he didn't have a belt, just a few strands of straw loosely tied around his waist. His pants were too short, revealing his ankles, which were purple from the cold.

His feet, clad in straw sandals, were deformed from the cold and had even festered.

"This is..." Shen Chang'an tilted his head, looking at the four thin, short boys behind the young man. The four boys were just as ragged as the young man, they didn't even have cloth shoes. They stood awkwardly behind the young man, their four pairs of eyes filled with wonder and unease.

Shen Chang'an suddenly understood something. A surge of heat rose in his throat. He blinked several times before suppressing the sourness in his throat. "Where did you come from?"

"You can understand us? That's great!" The class monitor was a little excited. "Do you know how far Tengzhou is from here?"

"Tengzhou is over 700 kilometers from here."

"Over 700 kilometers?!" Only the fourteen-year-old little soldierwas surprised. "Squad leader, we've walked over 700 kilometers in one night. Oh no, how are we going to get back now?"

"You want to go back?" Shen Chang'an looked at their bleeding and festering feet, his throat bobbing. "There's no war here anymore. You don't need to go back."

"How can that be?" The little soldier tightened the straw around his waist, which had become a little loose. "We need to go back and drive out the enemy before we can rest easy. When I left, my mother told me that when I came back after defeating the enemy, she would make me oily noodle."

"Little comrade, can you tell us how to get back to Tengzhou?" The squad leader, was a little anxious. Their mission was crucial. If they let the enemy infiltrate the rear, countless civilians would suffer.

"Don't worry, the battle in Tengzhou has already been won." Shen Chang'an's eyes were a little red. "Not only has the battle in Tengzhou been won, but the entire war in our country has been won."

"The enemy... was defeated?" The little soldier stared at Shen Chang'an in a daze. "Are you trying to trick us?"

"I'm not tricking you." Shen Chang'an pointed ahead. "This is the capital of our new China."

"New China..." The little soldier looked at the people around him, all dressed in fine clothes, and couldn't comprehend it for a long time. "The war... was won?"

"Yes, we won." Shen Chang'an knew that his current actions might seem very neurotic in the eyes of Dao Nian and the others, but he couldn't pretend not to see these five young men who were even younger than him.

"Then, then are the people in Tengzhou safe?"

Shen Chang'an nodded.

"What about our Sichuan Province?"

Shen Chang'an nodded vigorously.

"That's great." The little soldier showed a somewhat childish smile. "Then my mother, old Han, and my younger siblings must be safe too."

Shen Chang'an smiled along. "Yes, that's great."

"Now we're going to find the platoon leader and rejoin our unit, then go home and eat the oily noodles my mother made." The little soldier jumped up and down in excitement. "Squad leader, old Gen, Zhu Erduo, brother Qiang, you all come to my place, I'll treat you to noodles."

"You... watch the flag-raising ceremony before you leave." Shen Chang'an paused for a moment. "After the enemy was defeated, our country has become better and better."

"Squad leader..." The little soldier looked at the squadron leader. It was clear that he wanted to watch the flag-raising ceremony.

"Okay." The leader was also a little moved. He nodded. "Little comrade, thank you".

"You're welcome." Shen Chang'an looked down at Dao Nian, who also looked up at him. He moved his lips and bent down to whisper in his ear, "Dao Nian, we'll talk about it when we get back, okay?"

Dao Nian nodded silently.

"Was your friend's leg also injured by the enemy?" The little soldier secretly glanced at Dao Nian, who was sitting in a wheelchair. "But this chair of his is really good. If Old Lian Chang could use it too, that would be great."

The old platoon leader was blown off both legs by enemy fire and sent to the rear. No one knew if he survived.

"Dongwa!" the squad leader barked, "Shut up."

The soldier called Dongwa quickly shut his mouth. He whispered an apology to Shen Chang'an, "Sorry, I shouldn't have brought up such a sad topic."

"It's okay," Shen Chang'an shook his head slowly, "I hope he got to use them later."

They followed the flow of people to the edge of the square. There were already many people outside, all wearing thick coats. Shen Chang'an looked at the straw sandals on the five people's feet and silently looked away.

"How long until dawn?" The little soldier was a bit restless. After an hour of quiet, he started asking Shen Chang'an again, "Those people with hair that isn't black, aren't they from our China?"

"Some are foreigners, but most are our own Chinese people," Shen Chang'an explained patiently. "They just use a kind of dye to color their hair."

"There are such amazing things?" The little soldier scratched his head and chuckled. "It looks kind of pretty too."

The squad leader silently observed everything around him, his doubts growing. But seeing Dongwa happily chatting with the young comrade in the bright clothes, he didn't want to bother him.

Time passed slowly, and as dawn approached, the flag-raising ceremony began.

The five of them stood on tiptoes to look into the distance. When they saw the soldiers, dressed in neat uniforms, marching in unison, wearing white gloves and leather boots, holding up the national flag, they were stunned.

As the music started playing and the red flag slowly rose, they noticed that the people around them were all silently singing something. The little soldier asked Shen Chang'an, "What are they singing?"

"The national anthem," Shen Chang'an said. "It's a song that everyone in our country knows."

"That's great," the little soldier said with a smile. "I'll learn to sing it too when I get back."

When the red flag reached the top of the flagpole, applause erupted. The squad leader looked around in confusion, everyone here was wearing beautiful, thick clothes, and everyone had a relaxed smile on their faces.

He saw that there were old people and children, their shoes looked incredibly warm.

As the first rays of dawn rose, he suddenly remembered.

They didn't lose the landmines, they just perished with the enemies who were trying to escape after the landmines exploded.

It's just... he forgot.

They, they're already dead.

Sunlight bathed his youthful face, as if painting his entire body with a layer of light.

"What year is it?"

"2018."

"Did we really win the war?"

"We did win," Shen Chang'an nodded, "Everyone has clothes to wear, food to eat, and they don't have to worry about enemy fire falling from the sky."

"That's great," the squad leader grinned, "Peaceful."

"Thank you," Shen Chang'an bowed to the five of them.

"Then... we should go back."

"Go back where?" the soldier asked, "To report to the platoon leader?"

"No, back to Sichuan Province, we'll go back together," the squad leader said, "There, there are people waiting for us to go back."